Citing two U. S. officials, the U. S. news site Axios reported that the U. S. -Israel assembly was canceled after Netanyahu released a video on Tuesday criticizing Biden’s administration for denying military assistance to Israel.
The prime minister warned that this will slow the Israeli offensive in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, where the attack exacerbated the already dire humanitarian scenario for Palestinians in the besieged and bombed territory.
The video reportedly angered U. S. President Joe Biden’s most sensible advisers.
“This ruling obviously indicates that such measures have consequences,” a U. S. official told Axios.
“Americans are furious. Bibi’s video did a lot of damage,” said a senior Israeli official, a popular nickname for Netanyahu.
Axios reported that some Israeli officials were already on their way to Washington when the assembly was canceled.
A third U. S. official told the news site that the meeting was postponed rather than canceled.
Ties between Netanyahu and Biden have been strained for months over the situation in Gaza and the colossal death toll.
Biden has delayed delivering some heavy bombs to his closest best friend since May because of fears about the threat to kill civilians. However, the leadership has gone to great lengths to address any suggestion that Israeli forces have crossed a red line in the escalation. invasion of Rafah, which would lead to a more drastic ban on arms transfers.
Netanyahu, in a short video, addressed the English-language camera as he launched harsh complaints at Biden over “bottlenecks” in arms transfers.
“It is that in recent months the leadership has denied weapons and ammunition to Israel,” Netanyahu said. “Give us the equipment and we’ll finish the task much faster. “
Netanyahu did specify which weapons were in possession.
The United States has provided Israel with a very important army and diplomacy since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7.
Two very sensible congressional Democrats paved the way for Washington to sell F-15s to Israel for $15 billion, after some delay, while one of them sought answers from Biden’s leadership about Israel’s current use of U. S. weapons in the Gaza war.
More than 37,000 people have been killed in Israel’s relentless offensive, and thousands more are believed to have died under the rubble. Almost all of the territory’s 2. 3 million inhabitants have been displaced and parts of Gaza are already suffering from famine.
Negotiations mediated through the United States, Qatar and Egypt have so far failed to achieve a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian organization Hamas, which Tel Aviv says it needs to dismantle.
(Agencies contributed to this report)